1831.] Poland, Paxl and Present. 7 



Sclavonic fathers, rose in arms, disavowed the dictation of the feudal 

 lords, and demanded the right of free election to the throne. The great 

 nobles were awed, and the electors assembled at the city of Kruswic. 

 But in their triumph they had been improvident enough to meet,, with- 

 out considering how they were to provide for the subsistence of so vast 

 a multitude. They must now have dispersed, or fought for their food, 

 but for the wisdom of one man, Piast, an opulent inhabitant of the city. 

 Knowing the rashness of popular haste, and the evils which it might 

 produce, he had, with fortunate sagacity, collected large magazines of 

 provision beforehand. On the first cry of famine, he threw them open 

 to his countrymen. In their gratitude for a relief so unexpected, and 

 their admiration of his foresight, the multitude shouted out that " they 

 had found the only king worthy of Poland." The other candidates 

 were forced to yield. The great feudatories, more willing to see an in- 

 ferior placed above them than to see a rival made their sovereign, joined 

 in the popular acclamation. The citizen Piast was proclaimed king. 

 He justified the choice by singular intelligence, virtue and humanity ; 

 and when, in 861, he died, left his memory adored by the people, and 

 his throne to his son and to a dynasty which was not extinguished for 

 five hundred years. 



In the reign of his descendant, Miecislaw, Poland was converted to 

 Christianity. The king had married a Christian princess, Dambrowcka, 

 the daughter of Boleslas, Duke of Bohemia; the condition demanded 

 by his queen was, that he should renounce paganism. The condition 

 may have been an easy one to the monarch, whose sense and manliness, 

 if they knew but little of Christianity, must have long scorned the gross 

 vices arid flagrant absurdities of the national superstition. He submitted 

 to all the restrictions of the new faith with the zeal of a determined 

 convert ; dismissed the seven partners which pagan license had given to 

 the royal couch, sent an order through his realm for the demolition of all 

 the idols, and, to the wonder of his people, submitting the royal person 

 into the hands of a Roman monk, was baptized. 



The former religion of Poland was a modification of the same worship 

 of the elements, or the powers presumed to command the fates of man, 

 which was to be found in every region of the north ; and which, with 

 additional and poetic elegance, was the adopted religion of Greece and 

 Rome. They had their sovereign of the skies, the lord of the thunder, 

 by the name of Jassem. Liada was their ruler of war. To this Jupiter 

 and Mars, they added a Venus, named, less harmoniously, Dzidzielia. 

 Two inseparable brothers, their Lei and ]?ollel, had the history and 

 attribates of the Greek Castor and Pollux. Drie wanna was scarcely 

 more different from the Greek Diana in attributes than in name. They 

 had a goddess of the earth and its produce, Marzanna, their Ceres; and 

 their deity of terrors, Niam, the Pluto, whose oracle at Guesna was the 

 awe and inspiration of the north. They had one deity more which 

 escaped Greek invention, unless it were represented by the " fatal 

 sisters three," Ziwic, the " mighty and venerable," the " disposer of 

 the lives of man." 



In 1370; by the death of Casimir, the crown of Poland finally past 

 away from the Piast dynasty. They had already worn it for a longer 

 period than any dynasty of Europe, 500 years. Casimir was one of 

 those singular mixtures of truth and error, strong passions, and great 



